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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29137275">sunbursts and starshine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/disjointed_symphony/pseuds/disjointed_symphony'>disjointed_symphony</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Hatake Kakashi, BAMF Midoriya Izuku, Body Dysphoria, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Gen, Hatake Kakashi Has PTSD, Hatake Kakashi is a Troll, Hatake Kakashi-centric, M/M, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Panic Attacks, Parental Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Suicide, Unreliable Narrator, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku, body-snatcher, liberal use of swear words, no beta we die like kakashi might've, sort of?? im tagging it anyways, sorta - Freeform, suicide baiting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:27:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,736</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29137275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/disjointed_symphony/pseuds/disjointed_symphony</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Izuku falls. The wind whistles through his ears, the clouds stare him down, and he hits concrete with a sickening squelch and the distinct snap of bones.</p><p>He's killed on impact.</p><p>Then again, Izuku's always been good at disappointing people. But it’s not really him anymore, is it?</p><p>Midoriya Izuku dies with unseeing green eyes and nobody's around to watch them fade into grey—or rather, watch one fade into grey, and the other into a spinning black design on red. Izuku takes his last breath in this world, and Kakashi takes his first.</p><p>or:</p><p>Kakashi is a shinobi above all else, even—<i>especially</i>—over his day job as a student of Yuuei. Over his night job of a sort-of-vigilante/villain, too. This means he will do whatever it takes to get home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead &amp; Hatake Kakashi, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Hatake Kakashi &amp; Midoriya Inko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>190</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Clever Crossovers &amp; Fantastic Fusions, Identity Crisis, Stories That Are Cool</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779702">Road to Nowhere</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerugonian/pseuds/Aerugonian">Aerugonian</a>.
        </li>
        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/12323409">Somewhere Far from Victory</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewfte/pseuds/ewfte">ewfte</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this fic is completely self-indulgent. enjoy and leave a kudos or comment on your way out!</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Izuku dies, and someone wakes in his place.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The figure sits on the rooftop long after the other has left, staring at the faraway smoke curling into the air, paired with bursts and pops of sound, far enough that they don't flinch.</p><p>They don't move for a long time—a phone buzzing incessantly at their side—and the sky has acquired a sort of grey tinge when they finally rise, like the pallor of sickly skin.</p><p>Dark emerald hair blows in a breeze, pairing with sad green eyes. They've got a grin that curls down at the edges, like they've been pretending to be happy for long enough that they've forgotten what the word means.</p><p>The smoke has long since dissipated, the noises along with it. This high up, the sounds of the city are nothing more than a steadying rumble.</p><p>The figure takes off their backpack, settling the worn yellow down by their feet. They sift through the bag for a moment, pulling out a damp notebook that's scorched at the edges and laying it down. A sharpie is produced and they scribble something down after flipping to an empty page. The paper is torn out with clinical precision, held between thumb and forefinger like a delicate artifact.</p><p>Shoes are the next to go, gently slipped off and placed next to the bag almost reverently. The paper is tucked into the left shoe but after a moment's hesitation, they take the note back out and instead zip it into a pocket of the backpack. The shoes go back on their feet. Everything is organized back into the bag, and a faint smile tickles the corners of their eyes.</p><p>They swing their legs over the pitifully small railing and sit. The metal creaks ominously as they let their legs dangle for a moment, kicking their feet back and forth childishly.</p><p>“Kid, wait!”</p><p>Whispering something that the wind catches and whisks away, they slip out into the empty air.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi Hatake wakes with a start and a shiver, and keeping his breathing even to not alert anyone who might be watching is second nature.</p><p>He assesses his surroundings—he's laying on something hard...rock? There's something congealing around him, and he knows it’s blood, can smell the metallic tang. No injuries, so someone else's. The air feels empty and a breeze brushes his cheek. He's outside. He sees hardly any light through his eyelids. Nighttime, then. For some reason, he’s only got one shoe. He sends out a low pulse of chakra to see if there's anyone there— and nearly breaks his cover.</p><p>His storage levels— his chakra— it's— it's <em>different.</em> It's civilian level. It's shallow. It's a couple drops where there should be a well and for the first time in a long time, Kakashi's scared. Not outwardly, of course.</p><p>God, he hopes All Might will come and save him. He’ll say, “I am here!” and everything will be alright. Wait. Who’s All Might? And he’s a shinobi, he doesn’t need saving. Quickly as the thought had come, it’s gone, a wisp in the wind. Kakashi frowns.</p><p>He composes himself and cracks open an eye the slightest bit, as he seems to be alone.</p><p>The stars are off. Like someone tried to draw them from memory alone, forgetting a few, making some brighter than they should be.</p><p>Kakashi sits up, a tingling sense of <em>wrong</em> lurking under his skin. Chakra levels aside, there's something strange going on. Is this another one of Naruto's pranks?</p><p>Pausing for a moment as the blood rushes to his head, he stands and casts wary eyes on his surroundings. He looks up and sees a shadow silhouetted by the moon, perched on top of a nearby roof like an avenging angel.</p><p>There's a loud, almost whining sound in the distance. Kakashi blinks and the person is gone. Kakashi blinks again, and then the world starts to shiver, fading to black, and he crumples like wet cardboard, his skull hitting the ground with a dull thunk. His last thought is about someone named Recovery Girl, and the vaguely-human shaped blob in the shadow of a building.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Aizawa Shouta’s been having a shit day. First, his cat is nowhere to be found when he comes back home from teaching a bunch of brats, then Hizashi calls to say he’d be away, and to top it off, he runs out of eye drops. To put it frankly, Shouta’s done. He spends the time in-between getting home and patrol with something mindless on the tv and starts to make furious red slashes across some poor student’s homework. Thank god the break is coming up.</p><p>“This just in: a villain has attacked downtown Musutafu!” The reporter cries over-dramatically, her pink hair twining around her arms like bracelets. “They seem to be made of some sort of slime, suffo—”</p><p>Shouta changes the channel with a sigh.</p><p>“—illain Toxic Mushroom has been attacking more and more, slipping custom hallucinogens into people’s drinks—”</p><p>
  <em>Click.</em>
</p><p>“—number one hero, All Might saves the day! He says his infamous line, “I am here,” as—”</p><p>
  <em>Click.</em>
</p><p>“—suicide rates of quirkless rise as the quirkless population decreases—”</p><p>
  <em>Click.</em>
</p><p>He finally lands on an acceptable channel and the rest of the day spent in the company of some classical music and Sushi, who finally deigns to join him, settling into his lap with a rumbling purr. Sometime after seven, Hizashi comes in, dropping a kiss onto his forehead and a soft pat on Sushi’s before ambling into the kitchen.</p><p>“Patrol, Shouta~” Hizashi sings barely five minutes later, wandering into the room and scooping an indignant Sushi from Shouta’s legs, spinning around and placing him gently on the floor. Hizashi twirls back to wherever the hell he came from, his humming fading away.</p><p>Shouta grunts, unfolding himself from the couch and doing a couple stretches. Today is… a regular patrol, that’s right, and he’s going through downtown. He hasn’t changed from his gear after he came home, so once he’s finished with his stretches he walks out the door and his patrol begins.

"See you," he calls, and then closes the door softly.</p><p>Exiting his apartment receives no problems, and the sun is beginning to kiss the horizon when he shoots out a length of capture weapon to leap onto a roof.</p><p>Eraserhead—he’s Eraserhead now, not Shouta—catches sight of an obviously drunk guy swinging a bottle around with chipped and knotted horns curling from his head. A woman is pressed to the wall in front of him, and he smiles at her. The woman has spotted skin, red and white and pink, and she wears a revealing black dress, cut low around her cleavage and tight in all the right places. Her eyes are startlingly dark, and there's bruises on the her arms and blood smeared on the corner of her mouth.</p><p><em>It’s been ten minutes,</em> he groans internally. Nevertheless, he erases the guy’s quirk and girl’s too, just to be safe, then swings in and knocks the guy out with a well-timed hit to a pressure point on the back of the neck.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Eraserhead asks gruffly, unhooking a pair of quirk-suppressing cuffs and snapping them around the man’s wrists. Sending his location to the precinct with a quick debrief, he keeps the woman in the corner of his eye. As far as he can see, nothing happened, but that’s no reason to ignore her.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, thank you so much, <em>Eraserhead.</em>”</p><p>He stiffens and whirls around, eyes glowing and scarf rising. She could be a hero otaku, a fan, a mother of one, but her tone of voice belies otherwise.</p><p>She grins. “Thanks for saving me from the big bad wolf, mm?”</p><p>He’s already rushing forward, scarf flung out in front of him.</p><p>But he’s too late.</p><p>The lady chucks something at him and he instinctively bats it away. It bursts apart in a puff of sweet-smelling smoke and the sound of plastic on concrete. The hero holds his breath, eyes watering as he stumbles out of the haze. The woman—the villain, Toxic Mushroom, an A rank villain rising to perhaps an S for the sheer amount of kills she has—is long gone. He can hear the police approaching, sirens wailing in the distance.</p><p>He curses, using his scarf to ascend to the rooftops, sparing a glance for the cuffed man being pulled out of the smoke before going the way he thinks—he hopes—the villain went. Eyes feeling like they’re on fire, he digs around in one of his many pockets before realizing: yeah, he forgot to stock up on eye drops.</p><p>Muttering under his breath, he swings from roof to roof, looking for the distinct skin. Eraserhead doesn’t find her, but after a couple of minutes, he instead stumbles across someone sitting on a roof.</p><p>Strange. They don’t look like they’re about to jump, and with every moment he wastes the villain is getting away, potentially injuring more people. The black-haired man decides it’s none of his business, turning and bridging another gap.</p><p>He leaves, but there’s a feeling in his gut that won’t go away. Groaning, he skids to a stop and heads back to the building, berating himself. But Eraserhead’s an underground hero and he’s long since learned to trust his hunches.</p><p>
  <em>(In another world, he comes back to the television on low and the crackling-static report of another quirkless suicide, and he assigns himself to investigate the cause even when nobody else bothers. He doesn’t tell anyone about the person he saw on the roof— the boy that matches the description of the one dead. He can’t.)</em>
</p><p>The world turns cold and wobbly, every motion highlighted in blue-green. He runs as if in slow-motion.</p><p>“Kid, wait!”</p><p>Their lips move. They jump.</p><p>Eraserhead arrives in time to see the child—they’re a child, the same age as his youngest students—fall. Wasting no time, he sprints to the edge. Extends a length of scarf that latches on to them. He brings them up quickly, ready to scold and reassure and say “You’re safe now, don’t worry,” but he’s too eager, too fast, and he retrieves nothing but a single red shoe.</p><p>He stills, looking at the innocuous shoe like it holds the secret to the world. This brand has the extra length in the end— to allow for an extra toe joint—</p><p>The kid is quirkless. The kid <em>was</em> quirkless and Shouta might just cry.</p><p>No. No. Eraserhead rises, composes himself. Sends his location to the precinct. Falling into the steady rhythm of protocol, he leaps up onto the wobbly railing and cases the surroundings for the body. Except—</p><p>Except there isn’t a body and the kid is sitting up and then standing, glancing up to meet Eraserhead’s eyes. And there’s blood splattered around, but no sign of what should have happened, no mess of bones and gore. Just a sheen of red, and even that starts to steam away before his eyes.</p><p>Leaping back, he swears at the kid. Do they have some sort of healing quirk and they’re just fucking with him? God, what a shitshow. Still, it’s illegal quirk use, and he shoots a quick text off to Tsukauchi explaining the situation.</p><p>He risks a glance back and they’ve collapsed, knocked clean out. He winces, but the paramedics are swarming on-scene and he’s got a villain to catch. Eraserhead sighs, steps back, and passes out himself, the effects of the gas finally registering.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>oh god i hope im doing this right :pensive:</p><p>-the next chapters'll be longer (hopefully)<br/>-yeah he'll freak abt the mask later<br/>-um<br/>-all my Naruto knowledge comes from fic and google and the discord server im in<br/>-please tell me if I've made any spelling errors or anything<br/>-pls comment and kudos and share? idk if sharing is a thing but. you should :thumbs_up:<br/>-if I tagged all the fics this was inspired by we'd be here all day</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. i'm not a thief, i swear this is just a hobby</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kakashi goes for a stroll and stumbles across a couple crimes, no biggie.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>oh My God thank y'all so much for all the kudos and hits and comments im gonna cry</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kakashi lasts two days before he makes his escape. He'd needed information on the outside world, how people interacted with each other, easy things like that. But still. Two insufferable days of being poked and prodded and he’s out. </p><p>He swings his legs out of the bed—and almost trips with the first step he takes, he hasn’t been this tiny in <i>years</i>—snags a medical mask, grabs a couple pointy things in place of his weapons—who sets these things in a recovering patient's room?—and slaps on a henge. He gives himself plain brown hair that flops over his left eye, makes himself taller and, after a moment of deliberation, adds dark blue scales around his open eye, copied off the nurse that tended to him.</p><p>Then he jumps out the window.</p><p>He lands a chakra-assisted roll in a parking lot in front of some poor guy, nods at him, then speeds away and over a tiny fence. Here’s to hoping he didn’t accidentally flash someone mid great escape.</p><p>Eventually, he reaches an alley and there he catches his breath and stretches some muscles. Before walking out onto the street, he makes his henge cover his entire body, giving the illusion of jeans and a t-shirt, plus some actual shoes. He makes doubly sure that it covers the scalpel and scissors in his hand. Wouldn’t want to startle anyone, you know?</p><p>Kakashi then wanders out onto the main street and heads to his first stop—somewhere where he can find some clothing, because this dress just isn’t cutting it, henge or no henge. </p><p>Kakashi goes straight into the first store he sees, looking through clothing until he finds something that suits his tastes. He settles on a plain black long-sleeve, coupled with a pair of loose grey pants and a pair of red sneakers, brighter than he’d like but apparently the only ones that fit. Unfortunately, they don’t have anything armoured and he’s stuck with civilian clothes for now. At least the pockets are nice, perfectly shaped to hold sharp implements.</p><p>Glancing around the store, he absolutely does not cast a genjutsu and leave out a back window. Hah. </p><p>A toy store nearby sells eye patches and he shunshins in and out quickly. The only proof of his presence are some leaves swirling to the ground, fluttering in an empty breeze.</p><p>He ends up leaving his dress in a dumpster somewhere, newly acquired eyepatch settling nicely on his face.</p><p>Next stop: the library.</p><p>Kakashi thinks about his situation while he walks in his new outfit, this time hair yellow and eyes pink.</p><p>One. He has Obito’s sharingan again. Somehow. Kakashi didn’t really register it then, but he felt it sapping away what little chakra he had in the few moments his eyes were open. It drained the already abnormally tiny stores he had and that’s likely what caused him to collapse.</p><p>Two. Although his chakra stores are small (he almost feels like a child, again), he expands them exponentially faster than he would’ve normally. </p><p>Three. He’s in a different dimension, inhabiting a body that isn’t his. They gave him a mirror in the hospital and although his eye is grey, his hair is some sort of amalgamation between light green and white. The doctors had called it ‘Marie Antoinette syndrome.’</p><p>Going back to the <i>problem</i> of another dimension, he’s only sure of one thing—it’s most definitely not the Kamui. There’s ‘quirks’ here, and also heroes and villains, although they all seem kind of weak compared to the shinobi back in… before.</p><p>The last thing he remembers is—A bark snaps him out of his thoughts and he looks down.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” a lady says to him, pale green vines snaking across her wrists. She tries to tug the dog back, the leash straining and her hair frizzing. “He usually isn’t this—”</p><p>“It’s alright,” Kakashi interrupts smoothly. Smiling, he reaches into his pockets for the treats he always carries around before realizing he doesn’t have them. </p><p>"What's their name?" says Kakashi, crinkling his eyes in an imitation of a smile, squatting down instead and holding out his hand for the dog to sniff</p><p>"Oh— um, her name is Haburashi," The lady tells him.</p><p>The dog quiets, staring at him with soulful eyes and he’s suddenly reminded of Pakkun. He… he hopes his dogs are doing well.</p><p>Standing abruptly with a stiff goodbye, Kakashi leaves before he does something he regrets, like stealing her dog. Sighing, he glances around, eyes landing on his… let’s say, target. He feels kind of bad, departing suddenly like that, but this'll make him feel better.</p><p>He arrives at the library and <i>wow,</i> it’s huge. All that knowledge in one place. Inclining his head to the receptionist as he passes, he starts to browse, bills ruffling softly in his pockets.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>It’s been a full day, all he’s gathered is that chakra doesn’t exist and that people think reincarnation/rebirth is bullshit in a world where someone can nullify gravity. He steps out onto the sidewalk having learned… something, hopefully.</p><p>Reincarnation. He’s been reincarnated, what the hell. He thought this stuff only happened to people like Team Seven, not him! He flexes his chakra, disrupts his flow, bites his cheek until he can taste blood. Over and over again. This is not a dream, nor is it a genjutsu and that leaves only one thing.</p><p>He wonders why he isn’t more panicked. He wonders lots of things, actually, like why this world’s so familiar, why he knew the way to the library, why he… dreams of people and things he’s never met nor seen. Hell, why does he know what an eyepatch is? What are jeans? People call superpowers Quirks?</p><p>
  <i>“Even though you’re Quirkless...you’re still trying to be a hero, Deku?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Pray that you’ll be born—”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Useless.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“—with a quirk in your next life—”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Can I be a hero too, mom?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“—and take a swan dive off the roof!”</i>
</p><p>Kakashi groans at the influx of memories(?), attracting the attention of a passerby. They hurry on, glancing furtively at him. He resists the urge to stick out his tongue. Not that they could see it.</p><p>He shudders at the thought of him… assimilating with someone else, but supposes it’s going to take a while. At the very least, this “Izuku” and Kakashi still feel like different people.</p><p>Now, where is going to find a place to sleep?</p><p>“Fuck it,” he says aloud, glancing around before chakra-walking up a wall and hopping onto the roof. He speeds across rooftops until he finds a suitable place that fits his needs and settles in for the night. <i>I wonder if I have any parents this time around,</i> he thinks morbidly.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>His sleep is disturbed, rather unnecessarily, by the clanging of metal on metal. Kakashi rubs the sleep from his eye and leaps up onto a railing, balancing precariously until he rights himself with the liberal use of chakra.</p><p>Cursing this dumb body and this dumb boy who’s seemingly excersized maybe twice in his entire life, Kakashi jumps from the wobbly metal onto another rooftop, leaning over the edge to catch a glimpse of what dared to wake him.</p><p>He assesses the situation in a moment, also using the time to henge his entire body into a black, shapeless blob to protect his identity. He can't be bothered to do something more intricate.</p><p>Boy on the ground, older man kicking, toppled trash cans. Injured cat behind the boy. The smell of booze in the air.</p><p>Ah.</p><p>Kakashi whispers behind the man, knocks him out and lets him fall unceremoniously to the ground. The kid seems resigned, almost, huddling over the cat. </p><p>“Kill me first,” the kid rasps out, like his voice hasn’t been used in a while. He peers through violet hair that flops in front of his matching violet eyes, squinting.</p><p>Sighing, Kakashi moves the kid aside and kneels over the cat.</p><p>He’s not exactly an expert in using medical chakra, but he knows the basics. Can’t be too much different on a cat… he concentrates, green light emanating from his hands. Normally, he wouldn’t ever turn his back to someone that could be an enemy, but the kid is so out of it that it hardly matters.</p><p>“Shouldn’t be infected, at least,” he mutters, closing up the surface wounds. He turns his attention to the kid, who is… also unconscious.</p><p>Kakashi sighs again, shifting over to heal the kid’s bruises and a cracked rib. When did he become so soft? Must be those damned students of his.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi steps lightly out of the way of someone on the street, still in a henge, although he'd changed the hair colour to blue and his eyes to match. He figured an eyepatch was a little too much, based on the looks he’d gotten yesterday and decided to just fake an eye with genjutsu over it. Sadly, he’ll have to drop it soon. He doesn't want to be defenceless in case of an attack and no matter how fast his stores grow, they won't match his original ones for a while.</p><p>"Excuse me," he says to a man in front of the storefront, passing by him and entering.</p><p>The man stops and stares. Kakashi is aware—uncomfortably aware, actually—of the way the man tries to bore holes into the back of his head.</p><p>He politely inquires about the black masks in the window, the ones that look similar to the ones he used to wear. The blue-skinned boy brings out a couple and he buys them all with money he definitely did not pilfer nor did he steal. </p><p>Asking to use the changerooms garners a yes, and so Kakashi heads into the back of the store to change out the medical mask he's wearing to the one he's more comfortable with. </p><p>Someone accosts him as he's about to head into the front with his new mask, grabbing his arm and trying to tug him back.</p><p>He whips around and has a scalpel pressed to the offender's neck in a matter of seconds, a bead of blood slipping down his blade. </p><p>"Who are you?" he questions, hyper-aware of his surroundings. The fan in the background hums loudly.</p><p>"T-there's a, a robbery, o-out front," the kid stutters, breathing shallowly. His purple eyes dart back and forth, likely regretting all his life decisions. Oh. It’s the cat kid.

</p>
<p>Kakashi doesn't fail to notice that Cat kid evaded his question. The shinobi studies him for a moment, taking in his clenched fists and stiff legs.</p><p>"Thanks for telling me," Kakashi says, finally tucking his weapon away. He flashes a grin to Cat kid and starts walking to the front.</p><p>"Wait," the Cat kid whisper-hisses after a couple seconds. "Didn't you hear me?"</p><p>"Oh, I heard you perfectly," Kakashi says, stepping out from behind the clothing racks.</p><p>Ah, he's been itching for a fight. Gotta take off his henge first, though… he has to save all the chakra he can…</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Hitoshi stares. What was the point of warning the man if he was just going to ignore him? A tentative finger touches his neck and it comes away red.</p><p>He debates it for a moment, he does. And then he follows on the man's heels, berating himself all the way.</p><p><i>You're not a hero,</i> the rational part of his brain says.</p><p><i>Neither is that man,</i> the part of his brain that likes to fuck him over says.</p><p>He peers through the clothing racks instead of walking brazenly through, but can't catch any sight of The Man, as he’s now dubbed.</p><p>Instead, he sees a kid about his age with light green hair. And then he doesn't, the boy seemingly blurring and then three of the four criminals are knocked out. Well, he hopes they're knocked out. They could be dead for all he knows. He pushes down the instinctive disdain at the thought of such a <i>heroic</i> quirk and observes. A speed quirk, maybe.</p><p>The fourth one has her back to Hitoshi, advancing on the unprotected boy and Hitoshi doesn't think. Doesn’t have time to think.</p><p>Hitoshi throws a clothing hanger at the robber.</p><p>"Hey," he calls, stepping forward. "You enjoy picking on little kids?"</p><p>His voice wavers midway through, but he stands firm.</p><p>The lady turns, rage bubbling up. Literally, in this case, magma boiling and popping on her shoulders. "Who're y-"</p><p>Hitoshi catches hold of that tenuous string, grasping it tightly. He's out of practice and he almost drops the connection as soon as he feels it.</p><p><b>”Drop your weapons.”</b> he intones, words shaking with all the willpower he can muster. The criminal immediately unholsters a gun from her leg, three knives from the jacket, and a razor from her shoe. Hitoshi stares for a moment. Who’d put a razor in their shoe? Isn’t that dangerous? </p><p>"Yo," the other boy says, turning and waving from across the room. He wears a black mask and an eyepatch, his visible eye crinkling. But… where has he heard that voice before?</p><p>Hitoshi shakes his head. All he has is questions, damnit! For one, where did The Man go?</p><p>"You good?" the aforementioned voice says, right next to his ear.</p><p>Hitoshi screams. It's not a shriek, no matter what anyone says. He accidentally lets go of his hold on the criminal and she doesn’t even have the time to be conscious before the boy’s outline seems to shake, just a little, and she’s out like a light.</p><p>He scrambles away, nearly tripping over his feet. Someone called the police—they’re swarming in now, cuffing the criminals (thank god that means they're not dead,) and the boy is beside him, scuffing the ground with a shoe. He looks… bored.</p><p>"I'm fine," he says belatedly. Then he looks closer. "Hey, you look kind of like that boy on the news…" he comments, thinking out loud. "But the guy had darker hair, I think, and green eyes."</p><p>They're broken apart by a police officer before the unknown boy can respond, both taken to get looked over for any injuries. Hitoshi thinks he'll never see the boy again. Of course, he's wrong, but how is he to know that?</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Shouta opens the detective's door, slipping in quietly. "Any progress?" he asks immediately, drawing Tsukauchi's attention from his paperwork.</p><p>"No," he replies, sighing. "For all intents and purposes, Midoriya-san vanished from his room.</p><p>"N-nurse?"</p><p>"Clueless."</p><p>Shouta slumps into a chair, grimacing. The precinct's lights glare at him, the harsh fluorescent deepening the lines across his face. It does nothing to stave off his incoming headache.</p><p>"What's his quirk?" Shouta asks, almost tentatively.</p><p>For a moment, Tsukauchi's silent, the tap of his pen echoing oddly in the concrete room.</p><p>"He's quirkless. At least, he has the extra toe-joint, but you know as well as I do that the toe-joint doesn't mean everything."</p><p>Shouta nods, his suspicions confirmed.</p><p>"It might be one of <i>those</i> cases..." Tsukauchi trails off, hesitant to continue that particular train of thought. "Anyways, he's an amnesiac wandering the streets. We're bound to find him soon." He offers a tight smile as condolence. “It’s only been two days, so don’t stress. I'll update you should any new information come in.”</p><p>Shouta nods again. "Yes," he says, just to reaffirm his acknowledgement. He clears his throat. "I sent in the debrief of the villian," he says, just to change the subject. "She's found a way to turn her hallucinogens into smoke form." And oh boy, did he feel it. He'd been tripping for days. The painkillers had somehow made it worse.</p><p>Shaking the colour out of his eyelids, he nods a third time. "Yes," he says again, stiffly. "I feel... responsible for this boy," he admits, oddly truthful. "I'll get him back as soon as much as it takes."</p><p>Shouta frowns. </p><p>"As much as soon as it takes?"</p><p>Tsukauchi looks at him strangely. "Are you quite alright?" He asks, dry amusement colouring his tone.</p><p>"Yes." He stands, almost toppling over. "Lasting effects of the drugs include: spppeac-h impediments and."</p><p>"And?" Tsukauchi prompts, rising from his chair with grace Shouta wishes he had three seconds ago.</p><p>"And headaches. Also sta-stars." Shouta staggers to the door. "The effects come and go."</p><p>Tsukauchi steps forward, likely concerned. "Should you be out of bed?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>With that, Shouta leaves. At least, he thinks he leaves. One moment he's at the station, the next he's at home, sitting in front of the television.</p><p>A phone rings. It won't stop. How long has it been ringing, again?</p><p>Huh. It says Tsukauchi.</p><p>There's a message, too!</p><p>Shouta takes a moment to remember how to read, then swipes open the notification with shaking fingers.</p><p>What he sees snaps him out of his... Whatever he was doing.</p><p>Pocketing the phone as quickly as possible with his clumsy fingers, he throws open the door with an alertness that's been missing the entire day.</p><p><i>Please,</i> he thinks. <i>Please.</i></p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi sighs. Back in a hospital. He'd let himself be taken back in, just to satisfy his curiosity. He can't get the thought of having parents out of his head, and it's been bugging him all day.</p><p>He wonders idly if they’ll put extra security on him, this time. It wasn’t exactly hard to escape. Kakashi hopes they do, actually. That'd be at least a little more exciting.</p><p>He spins a knife on his finger, taken from the floor whilst he subdued the criminal. A decent blade, a little overbalanced.</p><p>Cat kid has a fun quirk, he muses, tossing the knife into the air. Perfect for assassination. He catches the knife, fingers pinching the blade, and resists the urge to escape again.</p><p>The door creaks, and he’s all smiles and no knives by the time the person walks in.</p><p>“Oh,” Kakashi says, recognition flooding in. “You.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-yeah he's high idk why thought it would be funny and it just kind of,, happened<br/>-I lied I couldn't fit him freaking abt mask in here anywhere so. mhm.<br/>-I hate this chapter so much it took ages to write bc I kept deleting entire paragraphs it was A Struggle<br/>-im sorry for info dumping I just Could Not with this chapter<br/>-let me know if there's any errors Please, Anything<br/>-I tend to pov jump a lot, whoops<br/> </p><p>should I post more regularly with shorter chapters, or randomly, with longer chapters?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. incognito all might?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kakashi gets fucked over, again.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>TWs in the notes!</b>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That motherfucking guy left him all alone to face the repercussions of vigilantism! That <i>asshole,</i> Hitoshi <i>swears—</i></p><p>At least he can play it as self-defence. Hitoshi isn’t a snitch.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Me,” the man agrees, stepping inside. He sits in a chair near Kakashi’s bed, and Kakashi eyes him warily, scooting backward so his feet just barely touch the floor. Controlled breaths, sweat along his brow. Darting gaze. Dilated pupils. Kakashi mentally ticks off a couple boxes in his head.</p><p>This is the man who brought him in? His appearance certainly checks out, according to the nurses and doctors that told him, right down to the grey scarf he wears.</p><p>He takes a guess. “Maa,” Kakashi says, “where can I get some?” At the man’s questioning gaze, he elaborates. “Those drugs.” He wouldn’t actually take them, of course, but it’s fun seeing how people react. The extra information for his profiling is just a bonus.</p><p>The man ignores him, but Kakashi doesn’t miss the subtle stiffening of his spine. “I’m pro-hero Eraserhead, and I was the one that found you. Would you mind answering a couple questions, Midoriya-san?”</p><p>Kakashi considers this for a moment, and decides if this so-called Eraserhead won’t answer his question, he won’t either. “Can I see my…” he hesitates, mulling it over. “Can I see my parent?” he decides on. Parents—plural—just doesn’t feel right.</p><p>Wait. Eraserhead, Eraserhead… the name sounds familiar. </p><p>
  <i>“Look, Kacchan! I drew Eraserhead! He’s an underground hero that fights mostly quirkless, you know, and I really think that maybe we could—” He’s cut off by a bang and the smell of caramel.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Shut up, Deku! You’re Quirkless!”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Yeah, but maybe—”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Izuku screams, high and drawn out. Snot dribbles down his nose and tears pool in his eyes as he clutches his arm, notebook fluttering to the ground.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“I said shut <b>up</b>!” Kacchan yells, fury blazing in the way he moves, clumsily but with malice. He leaves, the stomp of his boots reverberating in Izuku’s skull.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Nobody comes for Izuku, and he cleans up, goes home, and lies. Again.</i>
</p><p>“—riya-san. Midoriya-san.”</p><p>Kakashi startles, a hand jerking towards his pocket. He should’ve invested in a weapons pouch. He’d seen some things that could’ve held his weapons, curiously called ‘fanny packs.’ Instead they’re tucked into his waistband, his pockets, his shoes, his hair.</p><p>The ragged man—Eraserhead—looks cautious, scanning him up and down. “Are you alright? Did you remember something?”</p><p>“Remember?” Kakashi repeats, eye narrowing. Remember what?</p><p>“Your partial amnesia.”</p><p>“Oh.” Kakashi relaxes a little. He’d almost forgotten that he was someone else. Catching himself before he answers, he instead asks “What’s it to you?”</p><p>“Do you remember where you’re from?”</p><p>“Where are <i>you</i> from?”</p><p>“Where did you sleep last night?</p><p>“Why do you want to know? Creepy.”</p><p>“We’re getting nowhere,” Eraserhead groans, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.</p><p>Kakashi resists the urge to grin madly. <i>Another one bites the dust.</i></p><p>“How about we play twenty questions?” Eraserhead offers, leaning forward the slightest bit.</p><p>Kakashi doesn’t miss it. <i>Guess they’re getting desperate,</i> he thinks. “Sure,” he says out loud, “but I don’t know what that is.”</p><p>“Kid—” Eraserhead cuts himself off with another groan.</p><p>Kakashi watches in thinly veiled amusement. Of course he knows what twenty questions is. He used to play it all the time with Kacchan, although that was before—</p><p>
  <i>”I don’t need your help! Guys, c’mon, we might catch his quirkless!” Bruises on his legs. Tears on his cheeks. Blood on his lip. A looming shadow.</i>
</p><p>No. <i>Izuku</i> knows what twenty questions is. Separate the two.</p><p>Kakashi releases a controlled exhale, breathing steadily.</p><p>“—question for a question. Good?”</p><p>“Okay,” Kakashi allows, settling into the hospital sheets. Tucks his head down. Fiddles with his hands. Projects the best image of nervousness and helplessness he can. He steals a glance up, noting the hero’s relaxing posture. He plays the perfect part of childish arrogance and then deference. Maybe he hadn’t gone on many infiltration missions back in Konoha—his eye a dead giveaway—but he’d definitely picked some things up.</p><p>“Do you want to go first?”</p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>“I’ll go first, then. Do you remember your name?”</p><p>The questions continue in a similar manner, Eraserhead inquiring after where he slept (“around, you know,”) and where he’d gotten the clothes, (“oh, lost and found,”) Kakashi asking his own questions in turn. He carefully sifts through what little memories of being Izuku he has, keeping his questions to hero-related topics that Izuku would plausibly ask, subtly guiding Eraserhead to elaborate and tucking every bit of information away.</p><p>“Yes,” responds Kakashi, then pausing, debating if he should really ask. The moment stretches into however long infinity lasts, Eraserhead sitting far more calmly then when he started. Kakashi decides. <i>Izuku would’ve asked,</i> he thinks, <i>and that’s who he’s supposed to be.</i></p><p>“Can someone quirkless be a hero like you?” he asks, repeating words spoken on a rooftop with a skeleton of a man to witness them.</p><p>Eraserhead’s gaze drops.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Izuku!” <s>his</s> Izuku’s mother cries. She rushes forward, hugging Kakashi tightly.</p><p>He stiffens, then slowly reaches around to hug her back. it’s… nice.</p><p>“They said you were missing! I’m so glad you’re okay, do you know how much I worried?” Inko—that’s her name, yes—sobs into Kakashi’s shoulder. </p><p>“I’m okay. It’s alright,” Kakashi repeats, and if his voice is choked Inko doesn’t mention it.</p><p>“I made Katsudon, come on, it might get cold,” she rambles, a nervous lilt to her voice, “and they told me you have partial amnesia so don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, alright?” </p><p>She guides him outside the hospital and into a car, still talking.</p><p>“Did you know?” she asks in the car, continuing without an answer. “Apparently in the store they found you in, there was a robbery! Thankfully, a kid used his quirk to save you.”</p><p>Kakashi perks up at the mention of Cat kid, listening more attentively.</p><p>“Yeah! The kid has a brainwashing quirk or something, and I hear the robbers attacked first, so it’s self defence.”</p><p>Kakashi winces minutely under his mask. Self defence, sure.</p><p>“I was also wondering where you got the mask and eyepatch? Like a pirate, arr!” she says, gaze darting to him and back to the road.</p><p>“Pirate,” he echoes.</p><p>“Yeah!”</p><p>“The uh, nurses gave them to me,” he says, lying out of his ass. “They make me feel safer.” He doesn’t elaborate.</p><p>The car bumps on a particularly big pothole, and Izuku’s mom curses under her breath and starts on a tangent about roadwork.</p><p>They arrive at the apartment without any other problems, and Kakashi goes to the bathroom first, to “freshen up.”</p><p>In reality, he dispels himself and the real Kakashi swings through the window, landing without so much as a puff of the carpet.</p><p>He sways, exhausted. Making a shadow clone almost killed him. He probably shouldn’t have done that, considering his now near-empty reserves, but Inko is an unknown. Thank god the car ride was short. </p><p>Kakashi guesses he’ll have to eat her food, to lessen suspicion. The fact that it smells delicious has nothing to do with it.</p><p>Kakashi also supposes he’ll have to stay for a month or so. To get a grasp of her character, of course.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"First, the villain you called in yesterday. The man you cuffed is her boyfriend, and he says that he had no clue she was a villain. He fits her MO, so we've put him into witness safety."</p><p>"Yeah," says Shouta, sinking deeper into the chair opposite Tsukauchi's desk. He's getting déjà-vu already. </p><p>Tsukauchi grimaces. "Anyways, did you ask why we can't trace his path?"</p><p>Oh. Midoriya. "Yes. He said he had no clue, and that he just woke up in a clothing store." For all intents and purposes, Midoriya Izuku vanished from the premises. At the same time, cameras fuzzed out and broke into static, and then two days later Midoriya appeared in a clothing store. They suspect the two events are connected but… how?</p><p>Tsukauchi frowns. "Do you think he had contact with villains?"</p><p>Shouta shakes his head. "No, but I could be wrong. And, well, there’s something strange about him.”</p><p>“Meaning?”</p><p>“He didn’t act like a normal teenage boy. He just... maybe a side affect of his quirk?”</p><p>Hunches are an underground hero's best friend. “I’ll put that down. Anything else?” Tsukauchi says, making a little note.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Oh, I had another thing to ask." Shouta says, lingering.</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"How did I get home last night?"</p><p>Tsukauchi grins. "Oh, I had to call Yamada to bring you home. After telling me you were fine, you passed out on my carpet. Nice to see the drugs have worn off."</p><p>Shouta exhales. "Thanks."</p><p>"No problem."</p><p>He leaves, this time driving home on his own, and a week slips by, just like that. He’s assigned a different case, this one with significantly more permanent death. He puts Midoriya and his absence aside to work on at a later date. He doesn’t mean to, of course; but things pile up and he’s got homework to grade.</p><p>Midoriya is all but gone from his mind by the time the end of the week rolls back around, and he flicks the tv on like he always does, paging through the channels absent-mindedly. </p><p>"Does Chinese sound good for dinner?" Hizashi says, flopping onto the couch haphazardly. A hand smacks Shouta's nose.</p><p>He grunts, clicking onto the next channel, and then the remote drops from his hand.</p><p>"Hey? What's up?" </p><p>Shouta glares at the 2-D reporter, standing and making to put on his shoes.</p><p>The tv crackles.</p><p>"Oh," Hizashi says. </p><p>"—ya Izuku, age thirteen! Is this revolutionary? A quirk that can defy death itself? Find out more on channel 6, Quirk News!"</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"How did this get out?"</p><p>"I don't know!"</p><p>"We're going to die. We're dead."</p><p>"Shhhh! Maybe he hasn't seen it yet…"</p><p>"No. I have."</p><p>"We're sorry we swear it wasn't us, pl—"</p><p>"I'll be quiet, not me too, I'm <i>loyal</i>—"</p><p>"Disgusting."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi does his morning stretches, going out the door for his run and pausing at the door. It’s been a week since he was discharged (officially, that is) and he calls out a goodbye to the woman who thinks she’s his mom. It’s nice.</p><p>“Be careful!” Inko calls back as the door shuts. She’s a nice enough lady, had taken his new quirks in stride, buying black masks and eye-patches with a smile. Kakashi doesn’t miss the way it strains at the edges, or the way the hem of her shirt frays, or the white half-moons on her palms. He never does.</p><p>(He’s just waiting for his curiosity to die out, waiting for the moment that he can cut all ties. Waiting for when she tires of him. He’s always been good at waiting.)</p><p>His day goes something like this: wake up, stretch, go to the beach, come back home, stretch, finish his homework for his online classes, meditate, stretch (again, yes), sleep. </p><p>He jogs to the beach he’d found—although it’s more of a trash heap than a beach. He needs to build his muscles if he’s going to… he grimaces. Be a hero. Why, you ask?</p><p>The heroes might have the connections to find a way… back. And even if they don't, they're bound to have at least leads he can follow up on. Another reason: he's still trying to play the part of Izuku, hero wanna-be and devoted fan. The amnesia will explain away a few things, but not everything.</p><p>He <i>loathes</i> the thought of leaving his students in a fight he's not sure they can win, nearly breaks down when he thinks about it. So he doesn't. He's in for the long con, now, and oh-so-thankful the entrance exam is in five months instead of, say, ten. The sooner he gets home, the better.</p><p>He puts aside a couple pieces of metal that could pass for a weapon, moving aside a broken microwave. This beach is: a) great for finding weapons, b) helps build his strength, c) distracts him.</p><p>He heaves up a rusty bike, and gets to work.</p><p>Thankfully, Tsunade had forced him to learn some healing jutsu, and that plus basic medical knowledge leads him to overexerting all his muscles every day and healing them the next, and <i>that</i> leads him to improving his strength at a rapid rate while also deepening on his chakra reserves. He also can work without fear of a tetanus shot in his near future.</p><p>He was smart enough to pay attention—you would not believe the amount of shinobi that knew jack-shit about healing. They’d sooner fireball their wound, tape it together, anything other than getting it properly looked at. He'd even once seen someone use <i>ninja wire</i> to hold a wound together.</p><p>A couple hours pass in quick succession, and he’s cleared a good-sized patch of sand by the time <i>he</i> jogs by.</p><p>Kakashi frowns at incognito mode All Might as he passes. Watches him crest over the hill. He wonders if All Might remembers that day, or if crushing children's dreams is the norm. He wonders if All Might ever even thinks about what he did.</p><p>He returns to his grueling work, and by the time he's due to go back to the apartment (not home, never home because home is nestled among leaves and towering trees and—) he's amassed quite the pile of pointy things.</p><p>Kakashi hides them away, like he always does, shoving the best ones into his pockets for later.</p><p>He jogs to his… current place of residence, passing by a blond boy slumped on a bench on his way.</p><p>Going through his homework quickly, he hears the television from the other room, and then the sound of something shattering.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” he calls, poking his head out. Inko stands there in the kitchen, soup bubbling on the counter. She looks… horrified? </p><p>“—Quirk news!”</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi regales himself in the mirror, gripping the sink with white-knuckled hands. They curl around the basin, and he has to consciously remind himself not to funnel his chakra through weak (<i>weak,</i> skinny, not good enough muscles) and break the ceramic into tiny pieces.</p><p><i>Sorry,</i> he tells Izuku, wherever he may be, <i>I really fucked up your life, didn’t I?</i></p><p>He catalogues his appearance with detached precision. </p><p>Bags under his eyes, sweat under his armpits, <s>blood under his fingernails</s>. Scars he doesn’t remember getting, clear skin where there should be scars. Shorter than he should be. </p><p>Breathing deeply, he strips and walks into the shower, pointedly not looking at <s>Izuku</s> his body. Salt drips onto his lips and he closes his eyes, droplets hitting his skin. He scrubs until it’s pink and then red red <i>red—</i></p><p>(blood on his skin on his hands until his bones are soaked in death and they call him friend-killer with a stolen eye, copy-nin kakashi and rin’s stomach gapes open at him, skin sloughing off to reveal the truth underneath and it tastes like lies and metal dripping dropping off the edge of freefall)</p><p>
  <i>(blood on his skin on his hands until his bones are soaked in fear and they call him quirkless, contagious, loser, worthless and kacchan burns him, sunbursts across his shoulders and to reveal the truth he had to first die, crimson splaying out onto concrete like an angel’s lost wings)</i>
</p><p>Kakashi doesn’t remember the last time he cried.</p><p>
  <i>Izuku sniffles, staring up at his ceiling, All Might a comforting presence in his posters and figurines. A tear falls.</i>
</p><p>Kakashi chuckles mirthlessly. <i>Like Obito’s eye all over again, except this time I really am a thief!</i></p><p>The <s>shinobi loser jōnin kid man copy-nin quirkless person</s> thing laughs until his throat is as sore as his skin. The water tints pink, blood rolling from imagined injures and fights not had. When he glances down, again, the water is clear, swirling around his ankles.</p><p>“Crybaby,” he mutters, shaking to his very bone.</p><p>The weight of the world has come crashing down, and who is he to be Atlas?</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <i>“Can someone quirkless be a hero like you?” he asks, repeating words spoken on a rooftop with a skeleton of a man to witness them.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Eraserhead’s gaze drops.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“No,” he says, “but you’re not quirkless.”</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>tw: panic attack, body dysphoria, ptsd</p><p>(I (thankfully) don't have ptsd, and so whatever I write may be inaccurate. please let me know if there's something I should be including.)</p><p>-I hate it here<br/>-sorry the chapters like. only 2k whoops<br/>-we (my fam) just got a dog. so. little busy LMAO<br/>-I still have to prepare for my test<br/>-I keep forgetting to add a disclaimer that this fic is entirely self-indulgent whoops,,, im gonna go add that rn it's up on the first chapter now<br/>-let me know if I've made any errors, literally any at all please</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. inko, an interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Inko needs a drink. And then some.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm kind of working it like this-- when people talk, they use honorifics, but in their thoughts or when referring to them inside their heads, it's just their name. let me know if I messed up anywhere, bc I honestly forgot to implement this until now</p><p>eg. Kakashi studies Eraserhead. "Eraserhead-san," he says.</p><p> </p><p>(comment of the week goes to @Gheloured bc they said my writing was metaphorically sexy and. I--)</p><p>anyways</p><p>love y'all,, enjoy</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Inko sighs, typing out a quick message to Izuku, asking to know when he'll be home, then sets it aside to start preparing for dinner— just some fried rice, but she has to prep first.</p><p>A half-hour passes in near-silence, her humming broken by soft crackles and sizzles.</p><p>Strange. Izuku still hasn’t replied to her message. She snags her phone from the corner of the countertop, wiping her hands on her shirt and then texting him another gentle reminder to <i>Come home soon, alright? I hear there are villains out as of late!</i> </p><p>Inko turns on the news to occupy her and soothe her with background noises, lest her worries take shape. Unfortunately, it does the opposite.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>Izuku</b>
  </p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>
    <span class="u">Yesterday</span>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Don't forget to pick up that soy sauce on your way home! [3:02pm]</p>
</div><p>I got it [3:09pm]</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <span class="u">Today</span>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Come home soon, alright? I hear there are villains out as of late! [3:57pm]</p>
  <p>Did you see the news? Katsuki got held hostage by a villain right after school! [4:18pm]</p>
  <p>Do you know if hes okay?? their replaying it on the tv! [4:20pm]</p>
  <p>*they're [4:20pm]</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Inko rubs the hem of her shirt until it frays, staring anxiously at her phone. She calls Izuku, but it rings out.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i>"Your call has been forwarded to an automatic—"</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Abandoning her kitchen island, she decides that now is ample time to panic.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>[2 missed calls]</p>
</div>
<p></p><div>
  <p>Izuku? [4:22pm]</p>
</div>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>[9 missed calls]</p>
</div>
<p></p><div>
  <p>Izuku, answer the phone! [4:31pm]</p>
</div>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>[17 missed calls]</p>
</div>
<p></p><div>
  <p>Please, Izuku [4:40pm]</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Inko frantically sends message after message, but he doesn't respond.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div>
  <p>Izuku, it'll get dark out soon! Come home! [4:51pm]</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Inko sends even more messages, more missed calls until she can't stand it anymore and the sky is darkening to a pitch black.</p><p>She calls someone else instead.</p><p>"Yes, my son— he's not answering his phone, please, I don't know where he is—"</p><p>"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to calm down, alright?"</p><p>Inko clutches the phone against her ear as she tries not to hyperventilate, the man on the other side speaking as if far away. </p><p>"—in, out, in out. Yes, just like that. You okay?"</p><p>"Y-yes, I'm fine," she breathes out, sinking down into a chair. When did she get to the chairs? "My son— he's missing, please help me!"</p><p>The man, going by the voice, sighs. "Mm. What's your name? What does he look like? How do you know him?" he rattles off.</p><p>"Midoriya Inko, green hair and eyes short four freckles on each cheek and his favorite food is Katsudon and he's my son," she rushes out.</p><p>The man on the other end thankfully does not comment on the ending.</p><p><i>Stupid,</i> she berates herself, <i>what are they going to do, lure him in with a bowl of Katsudon?</i></p><p>"What's his quirk?"</p><p>She pauses. What if the man refuses to help after he knows? "He-he's quirkless."</p><p>"Hah! Maybe not anymore," the man grumbles, loud enough for her to pick up through the phone.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Oh shit, you heard me?"</p><p>Inko's beginning to think she'd be better off trying to find Izuku herself. "Yes, I heard you," she snaps. "What <i>do you mean?</i>" demands Inko, sitting up straighter. This man may have talked her out of a panic attack, but hell if he doesn’t have the worst customer service she’s ever seen.</p><p>An audible swallow is heard.</p><p>"Well, y'see— Ah, I shouldn't be telling ya," he mutters, a slip of an accent falling through. "He ain't even missin' a full two days." A scoff. "He ain't even missing."</p><p>"<i>What do you mean?</i>"</p><p>"Well, uh, ya didn't hear this from me, o'course, but..." he pauses again, and Inko is ready to rip his throat out. Thankfully, he continues without further prompting.</p><p>He lowers his voice. "Well, y'see," he starts again, "your boy was found outside a building. A hero—dunno which one, don't ask—says that he seen the boy fall. But the boy ain't harmed, not a hair on his head!" he crows, letting out a little snort.</p><p>Inko doesn't respond, in shock. Her boy? With a quirk? But the only ones that develop this late are—</p><p>"—trauma induced-quirks! The doctors'll have a fine time lookin' him over, if ya catch my drift."</p><p>Inko imagines Izuku, her baby boy, all alone on a table under harsh lights and masked doctors. </p><p>
  <i>"Can I be a hero too?"</i>
</p><p>She's about to say something, maybe scold him, maybe cry, but then there's seemingly a small scuffle on the end of the line.</p><p>"Ay— hey—"</p><p>"Mrs. Midoriya," a different voice, still male, says. "Hello."</p><p>"Which hospital is Izuku in? When can I visit? Who are you?"</p><p>"Ah," says the new voice. "My name is Detective Tsukauchi, and I'd like to ask you a few questions." A pause. “Not over the phone, though. Are you free to come in?”</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Are you Midoriya Inko?” someone asks to her right, and she turns and nods. The detective wears a beige coat and has a plain-looking face. She would’ve skimmed right over him if he hadn’t said anything.</p><p>“Yes,” she replies as if her nod isn’t enough. Inko clutches her bag tighter. “And you’re the detective? Tsukauchi-san?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Inko opens her mouth to start <i>demanding</i> answers, but Detective Tsukauchi holds up a hand. “Not here, Midoriya-san. Why don’t you come into my office?”</p><p>The walk down the hallway seems to take forever, and Inko’s ready to burst by the time they’re in his office and the door is firmly shut.</p><p>“Why can’t we talk outside?” she asks immediately. </p><p>“This is a complicated situation, Midoriya-san. Your son’s quirk is a dangerous one. The amount of people that would stop at nothing to get a hold of him…” </p><p>Inko’s knuckles turn white with the stress she’s putting on them. She opens her mouth, but the detective keeps going.</p><p>“Ma’am, let me make this clear,” Tsukauchi says, making eye contact, “this is an unprecedented situation. Trauma-induced quirks” —and here he taps at a chart on his desk, sliding it closer to her— “are exceedingly rare, due to the specific circumstances that must be met. Stress and danger levels are high enough to trigger the body’s backup defensive mechanism or the dormant quirk genes. And we’re not even covering the quirk itself.”</p><p>Inko swallows. “A-and what, exactly, is his quirk?”</p><p>“A form of regeneration we’ve never seen before.” Tsukauchi grimaces. “A form of self-healing that’s fast enough for him to— to return from death, or at least the brink of it. In fact, it may activate only upon death.”</p><p>Straightening her spine, Inko refuses to be cowed by the sinking feeling in her gut, the one that whispers <i>your fault, your fault.</i> “And, what, exactly,” she repeats, “were the circumstances of his quirk developing? Where did he get his life-threatening injuries?”</p><p>“Well, I was hoping to break it to you slowly, but I guess that’s out of the window.” Tsukauchi offers a grim smile. “He was found at the bottom of a building by a pro-hero on patrol. He attempted to commit suicide.”</p><p>Inko doesn’t cry. She won’t. She <i>can’t.</i> She has to stay strong.</p><p>“Okay,” she whispers out.</p><p>“There’s a note addressed to you and someone named ‘Kacchan.’ Would you like to read it?"</p><p>“Okay,” she whispers again, this time a little louder.</p><p>He passes over a scrap piece of paper, double-sided, a little water-damaged. Inko reads it with shaking hands, tracing her son’s messy scrawl.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i>to: mom</i>
</p><p>
  <i>i don’t really know what to write here, now that it’s time. I've written so many versions, but I have too much to say and not enough words to say them. I'll keep it short. thanks, mom. forget me, okay? i love you. i'm so sorry.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Inko doesn’t notice her tears until one hits the paper, smudging the marker a little. She holds the note away after that, so she won’t damage it more, and Tsukauchi silently hands over a tissue box. Wiping her tears, she hesitates to read Bakugou's note but flips it over anyways to the other side when the tears abate.</p><p> </p><p>
  <i>to: <s>baku</s> kacchan</i>
</p><p>
  <i>it’s not your fault. get into yuuei for me, okay?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>It’s markedly shorter, but Inko can still feel tears streaming down her cheeks. She sniffles quietly, tucking the note carefully into her handbag and looking back up to meet Tsukauchi’’s eyes again.</p><p>“Let me get this straight,” she says, breathing only shuddering a little. “My son has a potentially dangerous quirk, and thus we can’t talk over the phone for fear of someone hearing.” The detective nods, encouraging her to continue. “Who was that man, then? Before, on the phone? Why does he know of my son? Why would he endanger Izuku like that?”</p><p>Tsukauchi frowns at this. “His… He has a connection on the paramedic team that got called for your son. He’s an intern, and in fact, shouldn’t have that knowledge at all, but we’ve done the best we can to ensure that he keeps quiet.” He spreads his hands, almost helplessly. “There’s not much else we can do about it. I’m sure he didn’t mean to put your son in any sort of danger.”</p><p>“He’s in the hospital, right? Which one? When can I visit?” Inko says, redirecting the conversation.</p><p>They discuss the fine details a little longer, and it’s nearing ten by the time she exits, tattered yellow backpack in hand.</p><p>Inko watches the stars pass by on her way home. Her hands tremble on the wheel.</p><p>She arrives home, sets Izuku’s bag by the door, and stands there for a moment.</p><p>The food might go bad if she leaves it out. It might spoil. She should clean it up while she can.</p><p>She nods to herself, packing away everything methodically. Funny. She isn’t hungry.</p><p>The counter is dirty too. It needs a good scrub. Oh, and the floors have been looking a little dusty…</p><p>Inko cleans until the house is sparkling, and it smells like bleach and Windex and regret swirling around her ankles. She doesn’t open any windows.</p><p>She doesn’t sleep either.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>After the night passes, sleeplessly, the morning descends. Inko’s not allowed to visit him yet; the hospital will call when they’re done making sure he’s healthy. Trauma-induced quirks are really <i>that</i> rare. They need to do extra tests to make sure he’s all okay.</p><p>It doesn’t make Inko worry any less. </p><p>After a couple more hours, she can’t stand it. She drives to Musutafu General Hospital, fingers tapping at the wheel, and waits in the lobby. She brings a book, a fantasy novel about some wizard being transported to the quirked world, but only gets part of the way through before deeming it a lost cause.</p><p>She waits. For a while. She waits, and eventually falls asleep, the last night creeping up on her. Every so often, she’ll jerk awake, shifting uncomfortably on the plastic chairs before nodding off again.</p><p>She's prodded by a kind nurse—it's late, but she doesn't know the time—whispering to get up because the hospital will close, darling, and you've been here all day, go get some food, okay?</p><p>Inko finds herself in a twenty-four-hour diner with flickering lights and dirty tables. The food tastes like sawdust on her tongue.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>The next day passes in the same sort of haze as she returns to stake her claim on the plastic chair at the hospital. </p><p>And then her phone jingles happily in the quiet of the lobby.</p><p>She scrambles for it, answering it and pressing it tight to her ear.</p><p>"Yes?" she asks into the receiver, almost breathlessly. Daring to hope.</p><p>"Your son is missing."</p><p>"I'm sorry, <i>ano,</i>" she mutters, checking the number, "Tsukauchi-san, right? I must've heard you wrong. Could you repeat that?" </p><p>Silence. "Your son is missing."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <i>“Midoriya Izuku seems to have some form of amnesia. He didn’t respond to his name when called, and he asked strange questions about all sorts of normal, everyday things. It’s weird, though. Kind of like selective recall— only remembering the things he wants to remember.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Mm.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He’s physically fine— no signs of trauma, nor does he seem inclined to relapse. He has no self-harm scars, although he <i>does</i> have quite a few burns and scrapes.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Okay.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“He also seems to have developed a few nervous ticks. He kept reaching up to touch his mouth. ”</i>
</p><p>Inko shakes the memories out of her head, sending a shaky smile Izuku’s way, trying not to linger on the mask and eye-patch. <i>You’re going to be a better mother, now,</i> she tells herself. <i>You’re going to give him more choices, more freedom, and believe in him.</i></p><p>She spoons the last of the katusdon into the bowl, setting it in front of Izuku and making to brush his hand with hers. He moves his hand the slightest bit to avoid her, and Inko feels disappointment welling up, quickly squashing it.</p><p>Chattering about anything and everything she can think of, she pushes down her feelings and goes to eat her own serving of katusdon, watching as her boy hesitates before beginning to pull his mask down, glancing up at her. She averts her gaze quickly; no need for him to feel uncomfortable in his own home.</p><p>Soon, they lapse into silence, Inko eating nervously. When they both finish, she clears her throat, spoon clinking against her bowl.</p><p>“<i>Ano…</i>” she starts, feeling awkward. “Would you like to do online school?”</p><p>“Online school?” he asks, a note of interest in his voice, and Inko brightens up. She begins to put away the dishes, talking as she does so. Izuku sits at the table quietly.</p><p>“Yup, so,” she begins, “It’s basically normal school, but you won’t have to attend classes in-person. I was looking at some courses, and maybe we could choose one tonight?” Dunking a bowl into the sink, she shoots Izuku a hopeful grin over her shoulder.</p><p>“Hm,” he hums. “Sounds interesting.”</p><p>Inko turns her eyes back to the sink. “I know you love those hero books,” she tells the wall in front of her, “and I know you’ve always wanted to be a hero,” she continues, scrubbing a dish harder, “and I know I haven’t been the best mother. Let’s try to fix that, okay? It’s high time I started to believe in you.” She slots a bowl into the drying rack, firmly plastering her eyes forward.</p><p>Clothes rustle and then a soft, “okay” sounds, and she doesn’t chance a look behind her. She might start crying.</p><p>“I think you’re smart enough to finish middle school in a couple months, tops.” Inko says, putting the last of the dishes into the drying rack. She pats her hands down on a nearby towel and stands there for a moment, fighting back tears.</p><p>“Okay. okay. Let’s get… let’s get started,” she says, turning around with tears brimming her eyes. It was a lost cause from the start.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>They don't end up doing it that night— Inko can see the way his eyes droop as he fights to stay awake. She sends him off to bed with the promise of choosing courses tomorrow and then goes to bed herself.</p><p>She can't sleep. Again.</p><p>Inko tosses and turns, but the thought of Izuku vanishing on her whets any appetite for rest she has. After a while, when she's sure Izuku's asleep, she tiptoes out of bed resignedly.</p><p>Her door opens with a soft creak. Wincing, she pads down the hall anyways.</p><p>Izuku's door opens with a whisper of wood on the floor, and she pokes her head in, slowly, releasing a heavy exhale when she sees him safe and sound. She closes the door and goes back to her room, satisfied.</p><p>If she had looked to the side, just a little, she might've seen her son wielding a blade that was certainly not child-safe. She might've worried, or fussed, but again, only if she had looked. </p><p>The doppelgänger of the boy who stands behind the door sits up, nods, and simply seems to disappear, wisping into thin air.</p><p>Inko falls into bed, unawares.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>They get Izuku settled into an online course, and soon a schedule sets itself. He eats, goes for a run, comes home for lunch, finishes his homework and he has the rest of the night to himself. They eat dinner together every day, and Izuku, surprisingly, shows no sign of his amnesia.</p><p>He does take down all his All Might merch. Inko worries, for a while, but Izuku assures her that it's fine, the eyes just got kind of creepy after a while. Inko well, Inko agrees.</p><p>All Might aside, Izuku seems determined to make it into the hero course more than ever, going out for runs every morning. Soon, he stumbles across a beach piled with trash and tells her that he's going to clean it all. Inko is immensely proud.</p><p>He'd seemed strange, ever since what Inko dubbed The Accident, slouching more and yet more alert. She hears him mumbling, once or twice, but it seems to die out after she catches his eye while he mumbles something about heroes and getting home and going back. What was once a comforting background noise fades into nothing, and Inko takes to keeping the tv on as white noise.</p><p>She doesn't mention the note. She won't, can't, take your pick. She just… doesn't. It doesn't pop up in conversation, he doesn't ask, she doesn't tell.</p><p>It's nearing the end of the week, and they've settled into a kind of rhythm. It's almost normal. This, of course, is when things start to go wrong.</p><p>"Izuku!" she cries, skirting around her broken plate. He's already coming out of his room, his single visible eye set into a hard line, if such a thing is possible. For some reason, he wears a long coat.</p><p>"It's alright," he soothes awkwardly, stepping closer. "I'll be fine." Well, maybe he'll be fine, but Inko won't. All that information out for anyone to have!</p><p>"They— they're going to take you," she chokes out, closing the gap and hugging him like he'll disappear if she looks away.</p><p>And soon enough, they do. It only takes a day for them to knock at her door.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"We're from the Hero Public Safety Commission, or the HPSC," the lady says. She's tall, with lines around her eyes and a piercing gaze. "We would like to take a look at your son."</p><p>Inko wants nothing more than to lock the door and <i>run.</i></p><p>"It's for his own safety," the other agent adds, stepping up to stand with the first lady. He has pitch black hair and rings adorning his fingers, at least one per. They strike an imposing front at the door, the two of them with four guards flanking their sides.</p><p>Inko isn't cowed. "No," she snaps, closing the door firmly, sinking to the floor, and burying her face in her hands. She stands up right after sitting, swaying on shaky legs to the couch.</p><p>"We will use force if necessary," a muffled voice says behind the door.</p><p>Izuku appears beside her, eye curled into a smile. "I'll be okay," he soothes, wearing that long, unfamiliar jacket, and then he opens the door and steps out before she can protest.</p><p>"Yo," he greets the agents, a hand tightening around the doorframe. "Force won't be necessary. Let's go, then?" He seems to perk up, closing the door behind him without so much as a backward glance.</p><p>Inko sits there, in shock. He would just… leave? She staggers up. No no no no no <i>no</i> he's leaving what does she do? </p><p>Scrambling to the door, she flings it open, but the sleek black car they came in is already pulling away, and Inko falls again, slumping to the floor. She cries.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-sorry for going AWOL for a bit<br/>-forgot to mention!! yes, kakashi will be likely be. super cool we know he's BAMF<br/>-posting on mobile i know something's going to go wrong<br/>-someone give me some decently upbeat music <i>please</i><br/>-I've no clue on how to format texting-- don't come at me<br/>-LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S ANY TYPOS OR MISTAKES OR CONTINUITY ERRORS P L E A S E</p><p>special thanks to the three people who subscribed to my account i give extra love it makes me rlly happy!! </p><p>'ano' is italics bc it's technically Japanese (basically an 'um' or 'uh')</p><p>-i'm probably going to only answer the comments with questions in them, i feel bad inflating my count? is that a thing i think it is anyways<br/>ask away, i guess, sorry if i don't answer i'm so tired</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. hey, my trauma's buried for a reason</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This begs the question: Who did this to him? Who brought him to this world? And if he's here, did he really die?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>EDITED THIS CHAPTER A LOT KAKASHI NO LONGER MEETS SOMEONE IN THE HSPC WHO TELLS HIM ABT WHY HE'S HERE HE REMEMBERS IT HIMSELF</p><p>finally, the time skips, and soon I can get to the stuff I made this fic for</p><p>this chapter is very,,,, info-dump. sorry. but we get answers! sort of! anyways, I added some new tags, this one I call: unreliable narrator</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kakashi tips his head up to take in the rain, drops splashing on the bridge of his nose and cold against his lips. He chances a look down and turns a hand around. It’s big, the fingers long and scarred and <i>him.</i></p><p>“Ah,” he says, a content sigh.</p><p>"Are you okay?" </p><p><i>I haven't been okay for a long time</i>, Kakashi thinks, brushing water off his sleeve slowly. "Yeah," he says. He glances down at his blood-splattered shoes. Smiles grimly.</p><p>"Deep breaths," Rin chides, hands tapping his shoulder brusquely. "Chin up."</p><p>"Come on, Bakashi!" Obito cries, knocking him in the shoulder. </p><p>Kakashi raises his chin, blinking away droplets of water.</p><p>He brushes his finger over the memorial stone, eye half-lidded. <i>Remember</i>, it whispers to him, wet and slick with rain and tears. The sound crackles in his ears, dancing with the grief and sorrow of the ones he didn't save. </p><p><i>Remember what?</i> he asks back, hovering over Rin's name.</p><p><i>Remember</i>, it calls, letters tumbling into place like puzzle pieces. <i>Remember</i>. It sounds distorted, like speaking through a clunky voice moderator or the fabric of time.</p><p>"Come on, you left Choji all alone, you know?" Rin says, a taunting tone to her voice, a hole torn through her chest. Her smile flickers, blood dripping from her lips. Ragged flesh peeks out from her clothes, the smell of burnt flesh twisting up into the air. </p><p>Kakashi averts his eyes. He's seen it enough times already.</p><p>"C'mon, Bakashi! They’re waiting," Obito adds, all his skin on one side crumbling to dust. His eye glows red, his skeleton is a dull white in the rain. He lifts a mocking hand, the bones in his hand clinking together. “Remember,” he says, almost sad, “and go back to them. It’s not your time.”</p><p>“Good luck,” Rin says, spreading her arms. The rain begins to turn red, the smell of copper and the taste of blood on his tongue.</p><p>“Wait,” Kakashi whispers, almost weakly. “Please, I--”</p><p>Pain floods his body as his mouth opens in a soundless scream and it feels like <em>dying</em> (and he knows this feeling intimately, has died and will die and has made others die), blood painting his eyes red and it feels like searing burns on the inside of his lungs and then he <b><em>remembers</em></b>, finally.</p><p>When Kakashi opens his eyes it's like the world's in technicolor, like when a near-sighted person puts on glasses for the first time. His memories are shards of glass slotting into place, every detail clear and crisp.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Rocks litter his legs. He can’t move, although it’s less the rubble and more the chakra exhaustion settling into his bones, a familiar friend. “Run,” he rasps out, dust settling into his hair. Pain looks down at him, perched high above, monologuing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em><b>See you soon, Obito, Rin,</b> he thinks, the world fading to black.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—I got him, his breathing—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bits of words filter through. He can't muster the energy to do anything.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—hiraishin—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—modified it, though—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The seal—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“—something went wrong, wait, his body—”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"—too late!"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Chakra surging through the air, blanketing his consciousness and lifting lifting lifting until there’s a tug and he falls—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then his eyes blink open under the stars of another world.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>He died. He died and now he’s alive, a stranger in another’s body, and he <em>should have</em> died, by chakra exhaustion and Pain-inflicted-injuries both. He'd felt blood seeping through his mask, the air choked with dust and ash and then… he woke up here, of all places.</p><p>Kakashi breathes deeply, shaken to the bone. Izuku's bare walls stare back at him, and he takes a few precious seconds to remind himself who is he again. Where he is again. When he is again. His dreams rattle around his skull as he wonders, thinks, hopes.</p><p>Minutes pass. Could be hours.</p><p>"...HSPC..."</p><p>A small smile flits across his face. He stands smoothly, expertly slipping his coat full of weapons on. Kakashi's calm, burying any thoughts of wars and death—he's well practiced in the art—and walks out of Izuku's bedroom, moving into the living room. He can have a breakdown later. "I'll be okay," he soothes Izuku's mother.

</p><p>Kakashi weaves a henge over his eyepatch as he steps out the front door, making it appear perfectly normal. A waste of chakra, frankly, but he needs them to see him as ordinary. He ditches the mask too, tucking it away forlornly. His face feels empty, but it’s a necessary sacrifice. "Yo," he says to the agents, dipping his head in a nod. "Force won't be necessary. Let's go, then?"</p><p><em>Someone</em> in this godforsaken place must have a dimension traveling quirk, or something. And where better to look for records than the hero’s home base?</p><p> He gets into their car with the black-tinted windows and elevator music, the seats plush and the atmosphere... could be better. The ride passes in uncomfortable silence.</p><p>They exit at a big, towering building in the middle of the city, all glass and marble polished to a shine. The place is filled to the brim with employees darting back and forth.</p><p>He’s escorted in, the two agents in front with the four guards at his back. It’s a strange sensation, having his back to the enemy.</p><p>The two step up to a receptionist, whispering in low tones, and then the female motions for Kakashi to follow her, the other splitting off to the side.</p><p>He raises his hand timidly, instead, shifting as if uncomfortable.</p><p>“C-could I go to the bathroom?” he asks, adding a little quaver to his voice. Kakashi ditches the confidence from before, letting it dissipate as a case of false bravado.</p><p>The lady gives him a once-over. “Sure,” she answers, the pause unnecessarily long.</p><p>This time, when she motions to follow, Kakashi trails after her. She leads him to a bathroom, flats clicking on the tiled floor, the man keeping pace. The guards disperse at a wave of her hand, melting seamlessly into the crowd.</p><p>“Be quick,” she says, fixing a glare on him. He pretends to flinch, twisting his hands in feigned anxiety. He hurries forward, bumping against her in his haste.</p><p>"Sorry!" he squeaks out, darting in. Kakashi takes the farthest stall. His clone stumbles out soon after.</p><p>Twisting a henge to make himself someone he knows so he can keep it consistent, he tints his eyes blue, flaring his hair to yellow and painting whiskers across his cheeks. Naruto emerges from the bathroom minutes after his clone, ducking his head down and sliding smoothly into step among harried workers.</p><p>Time to find a way home.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p><s>Keig</s> <em>Hawks</em> alights on a railing, flaring out his wings briefly to steady himself. He slips his most polite smile on, sparing a glance for his reflection in the window.</p><p>He does a little hop down onto the balcony proper, and strides easily, calmly into arguably the worst place of his life. Yay, the Hero Commission.</p><p>Hawks makes his way into the room his handler summoned him to, noting the nervous boy on the couch and his handler behind the desk, closing the door behind him.</p><p>“Handler-san,” he greets, inclining his head. He never knows their names. Never will. She nods back at him, a noticeably shallower one.</p><p>“This here is Midoriya Izuku. You are here to evaluate him and see if he’s a good fit for our… program,” she says softly, words still carrying across the room with ease. Hawks hears the hidden threat. This is a test, for him.</p><p>“Understood,” he responds, nudging the kid over to the door with one of his feathers. “I’ll be in training rooms?” he says, lilting his speech to sound like a question. His handler gives assent, and he slings a hand over the boy’s shoulders, leading him out into the hall. The boy stiffens at the touch, then noticeably relaxes.</p><p>"Okay, kid," Hawks says, after they make it to the training room. "You know who I am?"</p><p>The boy nods, anxiously, but something feels <em>wrong.</em> Hawks barrels past all his bird instincts, instead continuing. "So there's a written test, but I never really liked it as a kid. Want to go straight to the physical?"</p><p>"Sure," Midoriya responds hesitantly. "Sounds good. And, maybe later, do you think I could get your autograph?"</p><p>"Of course!" Hawks claps his hands, fluttering his wings a bit. "First, stand over there."</p><p>Midoriya moves to stand where he indicated, near the middle of the room.</p><p>"Now, I'm going to—"</p><p>A swirling purple hole opens up beneath the boy and Hawks lunges for him but he's gone, just like that.</p><p>"Oh fuck," Hawks says, open-mouthed. "Oh <em>shit.</em>"</p><p>He desperately tries to sense the feather he placed on the boy, and all he gets is a feeling of freefall before Midoriya disappears. Just gone. His feather hovers for a minute, picking up on his uncertainty. After a moment, his feather burns, winking out much like Midoriya.</p><p>He's going to be in so much trouble.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>He stalks down the hall, too wired to put up his normal relaxed front. He spots a stairwell at the end of the hall and speeds up, not sparing the way he came from a second glance.</p><p>Eventually, after checking three wrong rooms and almost getting caught by a guard, he finds what he's looking for. An innocuous-looking storage room, tucked away in a dusty corner.</p><p>He picks the lock that is far too complex for a mere storage room and steps his way around the barely-visible lasers to reach a keypad. Pressing the keycard he nicked earlier onto the screen, a slow smile tugs at his lips. A beep sounds, the red light flickering to green.</p><p>He emerges into a windowless room, concrete shelves jutting out of the walls. Admiring the cardboard boxes stacked full of paper, he grins.</p><p>The records that are too precious to throw out, but too dangerous to digitalize. Perfect. His henge rolls off his shoulders, shrinking him down to kiddy size. He needs all the energy he can get.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"What was that?"</p><p>"No, I'm sure I got him. Just how…?"</p><p>The man in the chair steeples his fingers, a slow, menacing grin creeping up. "Interesting," he muses.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>His clone dispels.</p><p>A rush of memories greet him and he lets out a breath, tucking away a few interesting papers. They might notice they're missing, but oh well.</p><p>He takes a moment to sift through the influx of information, pausing for a bare moment at the sight of someone with huge wings. Hallway, commission, pro-hero, red feathers—ah. There. A portal opening under his feet.</p><p>Too bad the shadow clone seems unable to pass through the portal. It would have been nice to see what he's dealing with.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi watches the Commission agents step away from the apartment door. They'd likely come to tell Inko about his absence. After they turn the corner, he moves to the back, slipping in the open window.</p><p>He hears Inko puttering around in the rooms, sniffles floating through the air.</p><p><em>It's better for everyone if they think I'm kidnapped,</em> he tells himself, crouching in the room he owned for a week.</p><p>Glancing at the bare walls, he moves to the closet and casts an auditory illusion, nonetheless wincing minutely when the closet doors creak. He shifts aside a few pieces of clothing, pries open the fake flooring he made, disables the traps, and grabs his money. The All Might memorabilia was good for something after all. They all sold very well.</p><p>He casts a quick glance at what was once his room and nods to himself, grabbing an old canvas bag sitting on the closet floor. Kakashi sweeps up all the notebooks Izuku made and all his masks to boot, money at the very bottom.</p><p>After cleaning up, he staggers on the way out, bracing a shaky hand on the windowsill. Fuck, he'd overestimated his chakra stores. Exhaustion rears its head.</p><p>He slumps to the ground, his bag landing with a thud and the illusion dispersing.</p><p>Shit.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Inko's worried eyes greet him, and her voice is the only thing that stops him from socking her in the face.</p><p>"—okay? You're awake! Darling, I should call the police! They said you'd been kidnapped, and—"</p><p>"No," Kakashi interrupts, rasping out a breath. "Don't," he manages. Inko's eyes are the last he sees.</p><p>He wakes up intermittently, Inko almost always hovering around him.</p><p>The first time he wakes, he's not coherent enough to talk, only gulping down a glass of water before falling back asleep.</p><p>The second is almost a mirror image of the first, except this time he has enough energy to eat, not much else. What he wouldn't do for a soldier pill.</p><p>The third—</p><p>"Are you alright?" Inko murmurs, clutching his blankets. "I didn't call the police. Tell me why."</p><p>Kakashi blinks his eye open, vision wobbling. "I…"</p><p>Inko presses a cool compress to his forehead. "Okay, darling, tell me later."</p><p>The fourth goes much the same.</p><p>"I can't stay here," Kakashi mutters, chewing idly.</p><p>"Yes, I know."</p><p>"Alright."</p><p>"I'll pack you a bag for the next time you wake up."</p><p>What a wonderful mother Izuku has.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"What's going on?" Inko asks worriedly, staring at Izuku's prone figure, so small in his bed. "What won't you tell me?" she chokes out. "I'm sorry." <em>Sorry I wasn't good enough. Sorry I couldn't help you.</em></p><p>She glances up at the bare walls, shaking her head slightly. <em>It's for his sake,</em> she assures herself. <em>Freedom is good for children. He'll do better on his own. <s>Do better without me.</s></em></p><p>"I love you," she murmurs, shuffling out. Wiping at her tears, she sniffles a little, then moves to the kitchen. She has a bag to pack.</p><p>
  <em>Anything for you, Izuku.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi wakes oddly rested. There’s a new backpack leaning against the end of the bed, a dull, matte grey in colour.</p><p>Inko is nowhere in sight. Sweat sticks his shirt to his skin and a headache drums lightly at his temples when he stands, but he hops out of bed nonetheless and takes a drink from the water on his nightstand.</p><p>He rifles through the bag. Cash tucked into the bottom, some dry, non-perishable foods stuck in the sides, a full water bottle, a change of clothes and his extra masks.</p><p>Kakashi slings the bag over his shoulder, turning slightly towards the door. He catches sight of a note on the bedside table and picks it up.</p><p>
  <em>Visit me, please. I love you.</em>
</p><p>He folds it, putting in his pocket carefully. Huh.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Inko sets down the plate she was washing quietly, listening to Izuku rustle around in his room. She hears the window open, close, and lets herself break.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"You've failed me."</p><p>"No, it wasn't supposed to do anything but keep the body alive! He would've been brain-dead!"</p><p>"You've <em>failed me.</em> And look, now the whole world knows."</p><p>"I-I can still— I can still be useful! You know it!"</p><p>"I suppose so. This is your final warning."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Based on the snippets of conversation his fading mind remembers, his students used the hiraishin or some modified version that backfired and brought him here.</p><p>He flips through a notebook of notes on the seal and its capabilities, resting on a picture of the seal itself he'd spent hours carefully recreating from memory, down to the last line. Of course, it's all coded. Layered with ANBU code, his own code, and trap seals from zapping the person who touches it to blowing up their hands.</p><p><i>Thanks, Obito, Rin,</i> he thinks, a touch morbid.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi doesn’t mean to. It’s an accident, really. He spots a mugging and the nice knife the guy sports, flashing in the flickering streetlights. Very high quality. He can’t resist.</p><p>He goes in, out, and takes the knife with him.</p><p>The attacker lets out a wordless exclamation when his knife is no longer in his hand. The victim takes the chance to run, and Kakashi's left chuckling in the shadows.</p><p>And then.</p><p>The guy roars, and his fingernails elongate and twine together, forming a knife in his hands. It's very… very high quality. Kakashi glances disbelieveingly at the knife in his hands, and then back at the almost exact fingernail-copy that gains the sheen of metal the longer he looks.</p><p>Oh, gross. He keeps his shudder in—he's seen far worse things, but damn—and waits until the right moment.</p><p>The knife is finished, gleaming dully. Now. Kakashi darts in and takes this one too, purposely letting his laughter ring out into the air for him to hear.</p><p>This happens a few more times, the guy growing increasingly more and more frustrated until he wises up and stops making the knives.</p><p>Kakashi flips the four knives into his jacket, grinning smugly under his mask. The guy stomps out into the night, brimming with incoherent rage at an invisible thief.</p><p>Slipping back into the dark, Kakashi takes the long way back to his place, weaving across rooftops and over buildings.</p><p>A one-time thing, he tells himself. Of course, it doesn't stay that way.</p><p>He only stops enough crimes to get money or if they bother him first. Sometimes, when he's strapped for cash, he henges himself into an unassuming, slight woman—not that women are weak, just that they're statistically more likely to be harrassed—and lets himself be dragged into dark alleyways.</p><p>More often than not, he leaves the would-be attacker prone on the dirty ground, pockets emptied.</p><p>With the money, Kakashi rents an apartment in a crime-riddled neighborhood on the outskirts of the red-light district. Within a week, only the most oblivious of criminals stay. Those types don't make it long.</p><p>His apartment is bare, furnished with the minimum furniture and bare walls. He sketches seals on the walls and lays traps until he's satisfied. The view is alright, but he didn't buy it for the view. He got it for direct access to the rooftops outside.</p><p>People begin to hail their new vigilante; Kakashi slinks behind their unprotected backs, left hand in his pocket and a trusty porn in his right. This world has digital copies of everything, but nothing beats the feel of a book in his hands and the looks on faces when people realize just exactly <em>what</em> he's reading.</p><p>He does ditch the books every fortnight or so, when he visits Inko. She seems more frail and yet more lively whenever he comes around, perking up when she sees him and riding that high until the next visit. They speak of useless, mundane things.</p><p>Kakashi shouldn't visit. He's putting her in danger. But, well… isn't it nice to have someone care for him? Someone to take the place of his mother.</p><p>(He didn't visit, actually, the first few weeks. Convinced himself it was for the better. Inko had discarded him, already, grown tired of him, so what was the point of coming back? But one day he just did, and he couldn't stop from coming back.)</p><p>
  <s>What would happen if she knew he wasn't her son?</s>
</p><p>He stops going to the trash beach after a while, when he sees another kid and an deflated All Might frequenting it far too often for his tastes. Instead of training there, he trains throughout the night, parkouring over rooftops at a fraction of the pace he could with chakra.</p><p>As for the loss of weapons, the quality of the ones he picks up from criminals makes up for it. Quality over quantity.</p><p>After a long while of physical activity, his chakra stores have reached tolerable, acceptable, average levels, and its growth has slowed, no longer barreling into deep waters. He'd stopped the mediation—not really as much need to improve his spiritual levels, as they far outweighed his physical.</p><p>For a while, all is good. Of course, it doesn't last too long.</p><p>Kakashi's on a break, taking a lovely stroll through the park. It's nothing compared to home, of course. Here the trees are dinky and laughably small as opposed to the huge branches that stretch out to the sky back home. The air is crisp and clean, though.</p><p>Then he gets kidnapped, again. He nopes the fuck out of there before even catching a glimpse of his abducter, switching places with a marble statue in the park right before the swirling purple portal closes.</p><p>Kakashi wobbles awkwardly on the base where the statue was, the hole snapping shut where he was just standing. It’s is surprisingly high up.</p><p>He jumps, doing a flip down to land on his feet. He bows to an invisible audience, and begins to stroll away when he spots someone familiar. He tosses a wave at a nearby boy with purple hair.</p><p>Pulling his book out of his fanny pack he couldn't resist buying, he leafs through a couple pages before finding his dog-eared (hah) page, and resumes reading.</p><p>Kakashi sneaks a quick look at Cat kid, who's got eyes wide as saucers. He flicks up another wave, and then walks calmly away. He should do some recon later to make sure he doesn't spill the beans...</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>There's a limit to how much he can take, though, and after two more kidnappings he calls bullshit. It's interfering with his research—he's already lost a couple papers to the Void—and he's sick of it.</p><p>Time to find the perpetrators.</p><p>It isn't easy, and it certainly isn't fast, but he wins connections to villains, blackmail over CEOs and an information network as big as fucking hell.</p><p>Well, maybe not that big. But it's decently sized and Kakashi will take what he can get.</p><p>It's not long before he begins to hear rumors of All For One and his stockpile of quirks. His quirks that can do anything, if the rumors are to be believed.</p><p>Perhaps even travel across dimensions.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi flips through the news channels, quickly, and then frowns. The news about his amazing, death-defying powers should’ve blown up, but he hasn’t seen even a whisper of it online or otherwise.</p><p>It works out for him. A shinobi doesn’t need publicity. But still… the lack of, well, anything unnerves him. Did they shut down all mention of him? Makes sense. He still hasn’t seen a lick of a missing person’s report, even though they think he was kidnapped.</p><p>Plus, he doesn’t feel like he has any powers. Only his chakra.</p><p>Kakashi sprawls on his second-hand couch, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>He tries to summon his ninken.</p><p>Kakashi's been putting it off for a while, citing his low chakra as an excuse but soon it's more than enough to summon a single dog.</p><p>He takes a deep breath and just goes for it, blood smearing on the dirt.</p><p>Something… crackles, almost, when he tries, pushing against his will. He shoves more chakra into his summoning, more and more and more until he nearly falls over.</p><p>It doesn't work.</p><p>It doesn't work.</p><p>It doesn't <em>work</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"So," Inko says, "are you still going to Yuuei?" Kakashi pauses in his eating, throwing up an even glance.</p><p>He swallows his food. "What?"</p><p>"Yuuei. You said you wanted to go. To help people. To be a hero. The confirmation for your entrance exam arrived in my email yesterday."</p><p>Kakashi nods. He'd finished his online school in record time, so high school was the next thing to do. <em>Apparently.</em> He can barely believe these people go to school for twelve plus years.</p><p>He was done school at five—granted, it was wartime, but he's a prodigy. A child genius. Why does he need more schooling?</p><p>Kakashi can use the protection Yuuei offers, though. Very handy. The information that's likely stored there will be useful, too. In the end it's sort of a win-win—no more trying to hack into Yuuei, <s>his mothe</s> Inko gets to see him go, and he gets unquestioned access to their grounds.</p><p>"Yeah. When is it, again?" he asks, poking at his rice with a chopstick. He has got to change his name, then. So they don’t recognize him. It shouldn’t be too hard.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi arrives early for the exam—almost late by normal people standards.</p><p>He hums himself a little tune, flipping through his book idly as he strides through the oversized gates. This one has the best pictures.</p><p>It's fine. He'll just fail the practical exam, they'll stick him in general education, he gets unquestioned access to Yuuei and he can keep working on figuring out that stupid hiraishin.</p><p>A couple applicants sprint by him. Kakashi yawns, stretching his arms above his head, and counts the tiles as he walks, feigning disinterest.</p><p>He meets a harried receptionist who asks him for his information packet. Kakashi obliges, eye-smiling as sweetly as he can.</p><p>“Oh, this part’s sort of smudged. What’s your name, again?” she asks, flipping through the papers. She doesn’t spare a second glance at the porn in his hand.</p><p>Kakashi snaps his book shut. “Akatani Mikumo. That’s my name.”</p><p>She smiles, quick and faint. “That’s all, thank you. Head on inside, the written exam’s about to begin. This is your seat.” She passes him a slip of paper. Kakashi nods, walking into the exam room.</p><p>This is his hero academia!</p><p>Yeah, right.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>inko's a little ooc, sorry. ill explain my reasoning if anyone wants it...?</p><p>blame Kakashi being ooc on izuku or something idk</p><p>also fuck it's late ill edit later someone point out any mistakes if they see any hooooly shit</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. another interlude, ft. _______</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>_______'s <s>diar</s> journal</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
this is fucking stupid. fucking dream journal shit. fucking shrink.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>deku hasn't come back to school yet.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
<s>deku's blood under my fingernails and his terror in</s> i don't want to do this.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
<s>deku's body again again again I didn't see it in real life but it's always so real and vivid inside my head and sometimes i can taste his blood in my mouth</s>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
him again it's always him i can't fucking stand it he's haunting me even in death <s>couldn't even do one thing right</s> sorry.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
him falling from the school building and his bones cracking against the ground and his corpse coming to school with skin sloughing off his limbs</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
<s>it's my fault <b>my fault</b> my <b>fault</b> d'you did you know you will know because he's dead and dead and gone and expired on the ground because of <b>me</b> because i poured vinegar into his milk and fear into his heart and hate into his veins except he could never ever hate, could he, bright and bursting and spooling his love onto the ground like stardust for strangers </s>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>i see him falling and it's almost always in slow motion, hair fluttering out behind him like the hero he wanted to be and sometimes i wonder if he left me a note, like the ones you see on the tv where he tells me that he forgives me but i think if i saw a note like that i'd rip it up and watch it fly away because he shouldn't forgive me because it was my fucking fault, my fault my fault because i pushed him, basically</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
him, you, deku. again.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><s><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b></s><br/>
i hated you because you were better and worse and the personification of everything i despised and please, come back, (you won't, though, i know, because i pushed and you fell, and i see your broken body on my eyelids whenever i close them)</i>
</p><p>
  <i>i'm scared to open my closet and see what skeletons'll fall out, because i (mostly) know they're yours, femur and skulls and teeth and vertebrae tumbling onto my feet like the click-clack of a walk or a saunter or a pair of hurrying feet darting past me</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
it's my fault my fault don't you won't you know because i did and said and pushed him to the very edge and i dream of him, y'know, splayed out in broken reds and greens i dream of him on the edge with his hair flying around his face as he teeter-totters right over the edge he goes because my hands are reaching out and i push him down down down and he's dead dead dead like the palest stone for his grave (are there funerals for temporary deaths)</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
<s>he's not coming back for me<br/>
did he leave a note?<br/>
why did he</s>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
broken glass around my feet and each of my reflections a memory of who i <s>was</s> am</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
<s>hag wants to see she wants to know what dreams are rattling around in my head and i don't think i want her to see what do i do what do i</s><br/>
just a dream. like always.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
sunburst scars staining skin </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>Today, I dreamt of:</b><br/>
nothing.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>Today, I dreamt of:</b>
  </i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I put this here so there wasn't two interludes right next to each other, don't mind me</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>OKAY I SWITCHED CHAPTER FIVE AND SIX AROUND SORRY IF YOU'RE CONFUSED</p><p>EDITED CHAPTER FIVE A LOT KAKASHI NO LONGER MEETS SOMEONE IN THE HSPC WHO TELLS HIM ABT WHY/HOW HE'S HERE HE REMEMBERS IT HIMSELF</p></blockquote></div></div>
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